Saturday, October 29, 2016

Our last hexie is Floating Clouds, a hexagonal block from the 1930s given the name in the Kansas City Star.

Philip Speakman Webb 1831-1915

It's a good pattern to recall architect Philip Webb, one of the Morris circle, a life-long friend and partner in design, whose most famous house is called Clouds.

Webb and Morris met when both worked for London architect George Street as young men. Morris quit architecture to become a painter, and then a designer, and then a political activist, etc. But Webb pursued a successful career designing arts and crafts commercial, ecclesiastical and residential buildings.

Clouds House in Wiltshire

Webb's idea about integrating a building into its environment was a hallmark of arts and crafts architecture. The building should look like it it had evolved from the environment. Clouds is his largest project, built for Percy and Madeline Wyndham about 1880.

He designed the Red House for William Morris himself about 1860. Their tandem thinking is illustrated by the fact that they were the two founders of the SPAB, the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

I recently attended Deb Roberts's Turkey Red Tour at the the International Quilt Study Center & Museum. I enjoyed myself and learned a lot, not only from the lecturers and tour leaders but from other attendees. Getting to discuss the color at length was informative.

We all "ooh-la-la"ed over this butterfly print

that Madame Jacqué showed us.

Our first lecturer was Jacqueline Jacqué, retired curator at the Musée
de l'impression des étoffes à Mulhouse, which translates as Museum of Printed Fabrics in Mulhouse, France.

Let me tell you what I learned (a good excuse to show a lot of details of the fabulous IQSCM collection at Quilt House in Lincoln, Nebraska.)

First I'll tell you what I already knew.

Turkey red on the left\madder red on the right

The dyestuff is madder root, which rather easily produces a brownish-red. Vivid reds were hard to obtain in cotton. A complex process for madder dyes was first developed in Middle East. Early European efforts focused on plain reds obtained by dyeing the cotton in the yarn, then weaving it into solids.

This early-19th-century print shows a rather primitive discharge technique.

The yellow blob was bleached out and at the same time the

mordants for chrome yellow were added. The black

could be applied atop the Turkey red so required no discharging.

Those blacks could be Prussian blue or madder brown that read as black.

The simplest Turkey red prints were discharged white figures or overprinted blacks. Daniel Koechlin-Schouch of Mulhouse developed techniques to add yellow figures in the discharge process (Madame said that happened in 1821).

Thereafter printers developed increasingly complicated processes to add blue, green and black figures to the Turkey red background. Mills specialized in Turkey reds. Towns in England, Scotland, France and the German and Swiss states were home to Turkey red workshops and factories, but the process apparently was not done in the United States until after the Civil War.

Madame Jacqué reinforced some of our American ideas. American mills did not dye or print Turkey red until after 1869 and the invention of a synthetic alizarin---the coloring agent from madder.

A charm quilt from about 1900 has

several simple Turkey red prints like the polka dot,

probably American produced,

(end of the 19th century and into the 20th).

She also said that she knew of no Turkey red industry still active anywhere in the world. Synthetic reds (not ALWAYS colorfast) have replaced the old and expensive process.

Koechlin figured out how to dye cotton Turkey red

in the cloth in 1809. I had always assumed they continued to dye it in the yarn

and then weave it.

Madame showed many slides of complicated, lush prints like the butterfly print, which you can buy as a scarf from the Museum shop. But we don't see these in American quilts. Was it a matter of taste?Did quilters in the U.S. prefer simpler calicoes? Or were these more luxurious prints that Alsace did as a specialty too expensive?

One of the more complex prints we saw was in

the sashing of this sampler.

Did we import few actual French prints from Mulhouse,

the French center of Turkey red production?

It may be that Americans imported their red prints from Scotland, which began extensive Turkey red printing about 1830. We do not see Turkey red in American quilts till about 1840 and then there is an explosion of interest. I'm beginning to think our reds were Scottish imports and not French, although the style is certainly French.

Reverse of a Uzbekistani bedcover

Madame also talked about Russian printing of Turkey red, which may be the source for fabric in the 20th-century Turkey red bedcoverings we saw from Asia, places like Uzbekistan and Turkistan. IQSCM has quite a collection of these textiles.

Xenia Cord gave a lecture on What Is It if It's Not Turkey Red?, a discussion of the synthesizing of the coloring agent in madder, called alizarin, and the unreliable copies that plagued quiltmakers from about 1870 into the 20th century.

Xenia and the ELI quilt

Congo red, a direct dye, was developed in 1884 and we learned quite a bit about the complicated trade and innovation in the German chemical industry.

Detail of the ELI quilt from Ohio's Miami Valley,

dated 1894. The pinkish album block at top right

may have been dyed with Congo red, once as bright

as the Turkey reds in the other blocks.

Once alizarin was developed all the other processes in creating the Turkey red color were also synthesized and speeded up. A process that might have take a month in Mulhouse in 1820 and involve chemicals derived from sheep dung and human urine could be accomplished in hours with test-tube copies. In discussion our consensus was that even though this was an industrial process it was still essentially the same chemistry and the later red prints are technically Turkey red.

Quilt dated 1865

We saw a 1917 Red Cross quilt which Joan,

the volunteer who does genealogical research on the many Turkey red signature quilts,

said had Iowa names. It did not take me long to find my boyfriend's relatives.

The Mrs Kathryn Bringolf in this block is his grandmother's grandmother.

Another attendee found her uncle's name.

Thanks to Deb Roberts, the staff at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, and the visiting lecturers Julie Silber, Madame Jacque and Xenia Cord for a wonderful tour.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

I named this week's hexie Sussex Cottage for another building on Upper Mall in the west London

area of Hammersmith where the Morris family lived.

William Morris was a man of serial enthusiasms. In the last years of his life he set out on a "little typographical adventure" as he called it, developing a press to print beautiful books. Kelmscott Press,

named for the Manor he loved so much, began in 1891 in Sussex Cottage near his Hammersmith house on the Thames.

Sussex Cottage was reached through the door on the left (14 Upper Mall.)

The main building, Sussex House was home to another artisan printer, Emery Walker,

The Kelmscott Press printed over fifty books during its short life from 1891 to 1898. The Story of the Glittering Plain, the first, is typical in style. Morris's old friend from Oxford days, Edward Burne-Jones, did the woodcut illustrations.

Morris made the most of his own skills at flat patterning

by designing the borders and the large initials.

Assistant Sidney Cockerell described the early days of the Press:

"The house a little old fashioned one and the single hand press at the top of a winding corner stair. ...Printed sheets, one on vellum, lying about---all most beautiful, especially the first page with its elaborately designed border."

Morris cut his own type faces,offering

three original fonts.

Kelmscott Press was Morris's last love. He died at the age of sixty-two in 1896 shortly after completing the Press masterpiece: The Kelmscott Chaucer.

Morris Hexathon 25: Sussex Cottage by Ilyse Moore

Sussex Cottage requires a hexagon and three different tumbler shapes.

Or string piece it.

The borders in BlockBase #247 can remind us of the graceful Kelmscott book borders.

The pattern was first published in 1896---one of the oldest published hexie blocks---by a magazine named the Orange Judd Farmer (Orange Judd was the publisher's name.) That agricultural newspaper called it A Cobweb Quilt. In 1930 the Kansas City Star called it Spider Web.

Pattern for an 8" Hexagon

(4" sides)

To Print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11".

Click on the image above.

Right click on it and save it to your file.

Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.

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DOG-GONE GOOD BOOKS

I've published a lot of books on quilt history and quilt patterns over the years. Below are some links to buy them, mostly eBooks or Print-on-Demand. But first click on the dog to go to my Etsy store to see if I have any printed copies I can autograph and send you.

VISIT MY ETSY STORE

Click to see books and quilts for sale. The books are all print editions from early print runs.

E-Book version of Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

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Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns

The bound volume of this index to 4,000 designs with names is Out of Print. Buy an E-Book version above or buy the digital version BlockBase directly below which will print any pattern any size.

BlockBase

This computer program features over 4,300 patterns. Use it for pattern ideas, pattern I.D. and pattern drafting. Program is for PC's. Click on the box.

Making History: Quilts & Fabric From 1890-1970

A guide to making reproduction quilts, choosing reproduction prints and dating fabrics. Click on the cover to buy it from C&T Publishing.

Borderland in Butternut & Blue

Sampler Quilt to Recall the Civil War Along the Kansas/Missouri Border. A BOM with 14" traditional blocks and lots of history. Click for more:

CLUES IN THE CALICO eBook

Get this classic as an eBook. Easy to find index with a digital search.

America's Printed Fabrics: 1770-1890

How to date antique fabrics and add to your stash of reproduction prints with projects for reproduction quilts. C&T sells new Print-on-Demand editions. Click on the bookcover.

Encyclopedia of Applique

The Encyclopedia of Applique second edition. Click on the bookcover for more information about an eBook or a Print-On-Demand version. Or buy from my stock at my Etsy store above.

Facts and Fabrications

Twenty traditional blocks to "Unravel the History of Quilts and Slavery." Click on the cover to buy an on-demand print edition.

CIVIL WAR SAMPLER: 50 Quilt Blocks

The book based on my Civil War Quilts blog is still in print. Click on the cover to buy a copy from C&T Publishing.

Quilts From the Civil War

Information on the role of quilts in the Civil War. Click on the cover to read more and order a digital version of this out-of-print classic. I have paper copies in my Etsy store above.

Civil War Women

More about quilts and how women used them during the War for fundraising, patriotism and practical bedding. Click on the cover to see more about an e-Book or Print-On-Demand book.

EMPORIA ROSE

Challenging Applique from the heart of quilt country. Click to see more at C&T Publishing.

THE GARDEN QUILT: Interpreting a Masterpiece

More masterpiece applique from Ilyse Moore and me. Click on the cover to read more.

Visit My Spoonflower Shop

I have a few designs available at Spoonflower.com. You can buy yardage of postcard backs, quilt labels (like the one in the photo) and political prints in my Material Culture shop. Click on the label.

BOOK OF THE SAINTS EBOOK

You can buy my Book of the Saints For Quilters as an EBook for IPads for $3.99. Click on the picture to find ordering information for my 30-page collection of photocollages.

Lately Arrived EBook for IPads

A few years ago I did a Blurb book to accompany my Moda repro collection Lately Arrived From London. You can buy this little book with ideas and information on early quilts for $3.99 for your IPad. Click to see

Borderland in Butternut and Blue

A Block of the Month featuring patterns and stories recalling the Civil War in the west. Click on the cover to see more.

Prairie Flower: A Year on the Plains

Block of the month: Original applique patterns recalling the landscape of the westward migration.

Flora Botanica Museum Catalog

Exhibit at the Spencer Museum of Art featuring their spectacular collection. Click to read more.